Moving in line with the postulation that metadiscourse (MD) markers help transform a dry and tortuous piece of text into a coherent and reader-friendly one, the researchers in the current study attempted to investigate the effect different metadiscourse markers might have on Iranian EFL learners’ perception of written texts. To this end, 120 undergraduate English students were given three diffe...

The working group on tropospheric ozone of the Health Effects Institute has evaluated the need for epidemiologic studies on the health effects of ozone (O3) exposure. This paper summarizes current data and identifies possible research questions. The extent to which ozone exposure results in chronic health effects is largely undefined and is the central issue for epidemiologic studies. Most curr...

Metadiscourse is a widely used term in current discourse analysis and language education, referring to an interesting, and relatively new approach to conceptualizing interaction between text producers and their texts and between text producers and users. Despite the growing importance of the term, however, it is often understood in different ways and used to refer to different aspects of langua...

THIS issue of the Journal contains an important clinical study that describes the significance of a cardiac troponin I release in severe trauma patients. The incidence of troponin release was 12% and the authors identified three different patterns of troponin release: 1) a very transient ( 12 h) and limited ( 2 g/l) release that is likely related to the hyperadrenergic state observed in hemorrh...

BACKGROUND Crohn's disease (CD), a chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), occurs in genetically susceptible individuals who develop aberrant immune responses to endoluminal bacteria. Recurrent inflammation increases the risk of several complications. Despite use of a traditional "step-up" therapy with corticosteroids and immunomodulators, most CD patients eventually require surgery at some t...

Triticum aestivum L. and Zea maize L. are both sensitive to salinity stress which is a major problem faced by farmers today. In the present study, the effect of chitosan, a biologic elicitor under salinity stress was examined on growth parameters and biochemical markers in maize and wheat s...

INTRODUCTION To compare biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drug therapy persistence between biologics among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who previously used ≥1 other biologic. METHODS Using a large United States administrative claims dataset, we identified adult patients with RA initiating abatacept, adalimumab, certolizumab, etanercept, golimumab, infliximab, or tocilizumab ...

Introduction of tumor markers into routine clinical practice has been poorly controlled, with few criteria or guidelines as to how such markers should be used. We propose a Tumor Marker Utility Grading System (TMUGS) to evaluate the clinical utility of tumor markers and to establish an investigational agenda for evaluation of new tumor markers. A Tumor Marker Utility Grading Worksheet has been ...